Against the Darkness
by Lina1
Summary: In the heart of the forest and the darkest part of the night, a small boy is bitten.


A/N: This is a revised, slightly longer but still fairly brief version of something I wrote about a year and a half ago, that I uploaded here under "The bite." I came across it while hunting through my files for a school report and decided to dust it off :) Writing angst is not my forte, but I decided to try it anyway. I didn't have my copy of PoA with me at the time to refer to, so I apologize ahead of time if there are some minor factual errors. Rated PG, just to be on the safe side. Please review.   
  
  
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Against the Darkness  
by Lina  
  
  
  
The small sandy-haired boy stumbled through the darkness, terrified. He had no idea how he had gotten so far into the black woods, but he only knew that he wanted out.   
  
He could not have been more than five years old, but instead of having the round, pink cheeks of the child that he was, his face, smudged with tears, was pale and gaunt. His threadbare robes were draped loosely over his small, thin frame, his feet bare, scratched and dirty from walking through the forest.   
  
He hadn't brought his cloak when he'd gone to play outside in the early evening and ended up wandering idly into the forest that stretched for miles behind his village, but now he wished he had. Evening had slipped into night, and it was August, but he shivered as he walked.  
  
The boy paused. He strained his ears for the smallest sound: a twig snapping under someone's feet, bat's wings fluttering, the rustle of leaves in a night's breeze; but the air was deathly still.   
  
He glanced up, tilting his head back, hoping to see movement. The moon, outstanding against a canopy of black, caught his eye. It was round and full, with the merest wisp of gray cloud hovering in front of it. He continued to watch it as he walked, and gradually the cloud floated out of sight, revealing the bare moon.  
  
A shiver ran down his spine, and he looked instead at his feet. He did not know why, but his every instinct told him to run. He did.  
  
All of a sudden he tripped over a tree root and fell, hard, onto the dirt. He cried out. There was no reply.  
  
He stood, on wobbly legs, with the sinister feeling that he was being watched. He brushed himself off hesitantly, as if the slightest movement would cause someone—something—to attack.   
  
A creeping tendril of dread started in the pit of his stomach, and he turned around.  
  
To meet a pair of glowing, inhuman eyes staring back at him.   
  
He had hardly time to think. With a low snarl, something hurled itself out of the bushes at him.  
  
Two enormous forepaws hit his chest, knocking the wind out of him in a loud gasp. He struck the ground, rolling sideways in an effort to get the body of the thickly furred monster off him. Panicked thoughts raced across his mind, and in his terror the boy was able to scramble up, stumbling, eyes riveted on the lean black figure recovering its footing in the clearing.  
  
He turned and ran, panting and willing himself not to turn around. His heart tried to thump its way out of his chest, and cold sweat ran down his face. He heard fast, thudding footfalls behind him. He turned despite himself and suddenly two rows of teeth like daggers sank into his arm. His scream cut through the silence like the blade of a knife.   
  
Sharp waves of agony shot through his arm, sweeping like currents through his blood, splintering in fiery threads across his mind. Through the curtain of haze and numbness, he saw the animal back away. He was subconsciously aware of collapsing to his knees.  
  
Images came into dim focus, one after another, in his mind. Violent clashes of teeth and claws, glinting against the darkness. The pale face of a child, that he recognized as his own. Eyes, narrowed and shining out of the dark. The bubbling surface of a potion. A wolf's fur-covered muzzle, glistening with blood and lips parted to reveal jagged yellow teeth. A man, silhouetted against the full moon, hunched over, shaking, his head and body elongating as he was driven to his knees, and then the figure of a wolf rising and sprinting into the night.  
  
He was damp with sweat, his clothes rumpled and tattered. He lay on the ground, shivering, and he slid in and out of consciousness as he cradled his arm against his chest. The wound was black, and shone with a deep, dark magic that he had never known.   
  
The boy did not know how long it had been when he finally came to, and staggered through the forest as if drawn by a magnetic force, finding himself at the back door of his family's cottage. He was lucky that it was on the very outskirts of their small village, and that the few neighbors who cared enough to offer reassurance had left several minutes before.   
  
He pulled the rusty latch and let himself in.  
  
His mother sat at the chipped, wooden table, staring at a clay mug of cold tea clasped in her hands. Her limp, graying hair was pulled back loosely; straggling strands framed her thin face. His father was releasing a gray owl out of the window. He watched it soar through the air, above the trees. His face was creased and pensive.  
  
The boy stood in the doorway, and waited.  
  
His father saw him first. He was turning from the window and his eye caught the pallor of his son's face, small and fearful beneath the dirt that smudged it. Their gazes locked, and the boy saw something tense and worried slide from his father's expression.  
  
His mother looked up, and as she comprehended the child in the doorway, relief flooded her face.   
  
~  
  
It was night again when the boy lay in his bed, hours and hours later. He recalled how their tearful, relieved reunion had halted when his mother saw his wound. It had faded slightly, and the scar would over time disappear almost completely, but at the time it still stood out black against his skin. She had screamed and sent for the village doctor, as his father thumbed through a dusty spellbook in search of something that might help. While they waited for the doctor, she bade him lie down on his cot and questioned him in a state of great agitation. How did you get bitten? Does it hurt? How long ago were you bitten? What bit you?   
  
The last question was answered by the doctor, who arrived minutes later, examined the wound, and looked at his parents somberly.   
  
He had covered the puncture with a paste that prevented infection and bandaged the boy's arm gently; although he knew it would not help, he couldn't do nothing. He could hardly bear to tell the boy's parents that there was no cure, that he most certainly live his life as an outcast, and suffer far more than he should.   
  
That was his mother's pleading protest. But he's only a child, and so young, she had begged. Please, she'd said, we'll do anything to cure him. Is there anything we can do?  
  
The doctor, slowly, carefully wrapping a length of linen around the child's arm, had shaken his head.   
  
His mother had collapsed in her chair, staring at the doctor, but not really seeing him. His father had taken her hand, and they looked at their son, their gazes brimming with anguish and an immeasurable grief. The doctor propped up the child's pillow absently, and his face was filled with pity. You've got to get some rest now, he told the child, faking a cheerful tone.   
  
He'd left, conversing quietly with the mother and father for a few moments, and pausing for a moment by the boy's bedside to ruffle his hair lightly before heading out the door.  
  
His parents had gone to him immediately, sitting on the edge of his bed, and his mother had taken his hand in both of hers. He recalled the tear glimmering on her face.  
  
Now he was still in bed; having heard his mother's faint sobs through the wall after they thought he'd gone to sleep, he couldn't sleep.   
  
He looked out the window instead.  
  
The moon shone coldly from its perch in the wide, black expanse of sky, and he felt, for the first time that day, fear.  
  
He curled up and pulled the blanket over his head and trembled until he drifted to sleep.  
  
  
~  
  
  
It was six years later when the boy sat at a desk and heard the careful, articulated voice call his name.  
  
"Remus Lupin?"  
  
"Here," he replied.   
  
The professor glanced up. In his bright, twinkling eyes the boy thought he detected something, a trace of the grief he'd seen in his mother's face six years before.  
  
After a brief moment, he looked back down at his roll sheet and continued to call out names. Remus glanced around the room, taking in the faces around him, looking eager as he felt to be at the finest school of magic in the world. He felt again the rush of gratitude, and wondered again how he could have been accepted. It would be a long time before he learned that the reason was the professor standing before him. 


End file.
